Prospect of regime change in Iran

The upcoming
presidential elections in Iran may bring about formidable change that
will take aback even the alleged leaders of public opposition
movements.

In recent weeks the infighting among various
factions within the Iranian establishment has sharply increased.
Ahmadinejad, once Khamenei’s undisputed favourite, no longer enjoys
that position. One of his close advisers was imprisoned while he was in
New York. His recent attempt
to visit him in Evin prison was rejected by the head of the
judiciary. Ahmadinejad brought the issue to public attention by responding to a
private letter by the head of the judiciary. Finally, Khamenei
intervened and warned that making such internal differences public is
tantamount to “treason”.

The current internal dispute coupled by more
economic hardship, growing public discontent and increasing
international sanctions has made the Iranian regime more vulnerable
than before. The prospect of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and its
consequences, including among others, cutting the direct physical
link with Hezbollah, is a nightmare for the Iranian rulers.

In just over six months the presidential election
will be held in Iran. The bickering for power has already begun.
Given the events of the past four years, Khamenei’s room for
manoeuvre is much smaller than four years ago.

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic,
presidential elections have been more of a barometer to show the
strength of various internal factions within the regime. At no time
have they been a genuine election, in which the real opposition could
participate. Even at the first presidential election in 1980,
Ayatollah Khomemini issued a religious fatwa banning the Mujahdin-e-Khalq
(MEK) candidate from running, for not having endorsed the supremacy
of the clergy in the constitution.

In 2009, feeling more secure, Khamenei entered upon a
huge gamble. In the course of the election campaign he allowed public
debate between the presidential candidates. The anticipated objective
was to completely root out the opposing faction. The tactic
backfired. The revelation of only a fraction of the embezzlements
that had taken place throughout the years by officials and the
highlighted fissure at the very top, subsequently led to a public
explosion of discontent known as the Twitter Revolution.

The surfacing of the internal disputes provided a
unique opportunity for the people, being suppressed for years, to
come out and express their desire for change. The outpouring of public
dissent started with chants against the systematic rigging of ballot
boxes - which was nothing new in Iran. But soon after, the demands
went much further than what the mullahs were prepared for. The
chants of “where is my vote” soon turned into “down with the dictator”, “down with the rule of clergy” and even “down with
Khamenei”. There is little doubt that the people’s desire in the streets at that time was
regime change.

But for the defeated candidates and other self-declared leaders of the “Green movement” radicalization of the
movement was a step far too far. There was clearly a widening gap between
the people who made the Green movement possible and those, who under
the same banner, wanted to control the people’s movement for
limited reforms within the clerical regime.

Although the uprising was suppressed, however, the
discontent among Iranian youth has never died and indeed, it has since
grown due to the economic and social crisis that the country is
currently facing. In a very strange way, both the ruling
faction and those self-proclaimed leaders of the Green movement, despite
their differences, are united in opposition to those calling for
regime change.

The fact is that from the outset, the challenging
presidential candidates who later morphed into the leaders of the
Green Movement never intended at all to dispute the basis of the
Islamic Republic. In reality, they themselves had been, for years,
part of the same establishment. Mir Hussein Mousavi, recognized as the leading
figure for the Green Movement has never been a stranger to power. He
was Iran’s Prime Minister during the 1980s when tens of thousands
were summarily executed for political dissent. During
his tenure the infamous 1988 massacre of political
prisoners in which, according to opposition sources, as many as
30,000 political prisoners were executed in a matter of few months,
occurred. Geoffrey Robertson, the well respected lawyer and
former UN judge in his documentary report “The
Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran” reveals that in
December 1988, in response to a question asked by an Austrian
television correspondent, then Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi
said about the killings of the opposition, “they (referring to
members of Mujahedin Organization) had plans to perpetrate killings
and massacres. We had to crush the conspiracy.” He then
added, “In that respect we have no mercy.”

But, during his 2009 election campaign Mousavi tried to avoid addressing this issue. When compelled to respond he
made contradictory statements; from claiming that he had no hands in
the killing to tacitly supporting it as the right course of action at
the time.

Mir Hussein Mousavi with the picture of Khomeini in the background. All rights reserved

For him Khomeini’s era was a golden period that the country should return to. In a statement he released during the uprising on
September 28, 2009, Mousavi emphasized that the Green Movement seeks
the “implementation of the constitution and the return of the
Islamic Republic to its original self.” In another statement on June 14, 2009, he
described the Green Movement as, “committed to the Islamic
Republic and its Constitution,” adding that “We consider the
principle of Velayat-e Faghih (Supreme Leadership of Clergy) one of
the basis of the government and our movement will act within its
legal framework.”

Mousavi and many other like-minded people are on
the record as supporters of the country’s nuclear programme.
Talking to reporters in Isfahan during his presidential campaign,
Mousavi stressed the need to rescue the nuclear programme for the
country and said, “Nuclear technology strengthens our position
in the region and the world. We cannot abandon it.” Yet, as
reported by news agencies, during the recent anti-government protests
over the collapse of Iranian currency, people chanted, “we do not
want a nuclear programme, do something about our situation.”

While elections in Iran have never been a genuine
opportunity for the people to decide about their own destiny,
however, in the current state of the regime, the next election could
once again pave the way for another public outburst. Tehran must fear that in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and possible downfall of
Assad, it would be much more difficult this time to suppress a
movement for regime change. In addition, those seeking reforms within the
system rather than a regime change, such as those claiming to
represent the Green movement, are trapped in an identity dilemma.
They can no longer carry the label of opposition and yet help
preserve the current system with some minor reforms.

About the author

Nima Sharif is an Iranian-American human rights and political activist.
He writes frequently for various publications in this regard and he is
also the editor of Stop Fundamentalism website. His twitter @itantrack

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